A double-edged sword these Santa Anas. They provide crystal clear days as the east winds off the desert blow all the junky air out to sea but they also drive the monstrous fires that we are currently experiencing down here.
Its still early but these two fires down here in San Diego currently raging out of control are worse than the Cedars fires of 4 years ago.
250,000 people, thus far have been evacuated from their homes extending from Ramona in the east all the way west to the coastal communities of Rancho Santa Fe, Encinitas and Del Mar. In the south, rural communities have been evacuated and precautionary (voluntary) evacuations are taking effect in the more heavily populated communities of East Lake (eastern edge of Chula Vista).
Its bad and there isn’t any relief in sight. Even during Santa Anas we don’t get too much wind but it has been blowing consistently since we got home which would give an indication of how hard its blowing further east.
So we grabbed the Substitute and made a shopping run down to our local Ghetto Mart. The parking lot at the Murph (Qualcomm Stadium) was being used as an evacuation center for those displaced from their homes and the call went out for supplies: they had plenty of food but they needed
paper plates, plastic utensils, fruit juice and of course, water.
When we got down there we were told that the collection center for supplies was in Section M all the way around the other side of the stadium. We crawled along in single file traffic around the parking lot for a few minutes…. Where were all these people going?, we thought. There was plenty of space in the lot to just set up housekeeping if they were looking for a place to stay. We got um… creative and took a short cut to expedite our trip to Section M (kick-off was in 10 minutes, man!)
When we arrived there were small mountains of supplies concentrated in one area… water, blankets, sleeping bags, toilet paper…. It was amazing. And it dawned on us that the long-ass traffic line that wrapped clear around the stadium of which we were so impatient were other people, not looking for a place to stay, but rather waiting their turn to drop off supplies themselves. Yeah, we felt real good about ourselves after that.
On the drive back home, it felt like the wind had picked up and the smoke from the Harris fire (southern of the two fires and pictured above – Witch Creek fire is to the north) had gotten larger and darker. Not good. Not good at all.
Keep your fingers crossed for us and say a prayer for a change in the weather, a nice on-shore flow, a decrease in the wind and in particular for the safety of those whose homes are in danger and of the fire fighters and emergency workers who have got their hands full right now but whose commitment never waivers.
As you can see below, B-Daddy is all over this. This will be our last post for a while as we will be out to sea for a couple and then off to Vegas, which seems even a bit more frivolous and banal than it did just a few days ago.
Its still early but these two fires down here in San Diego currently raging out of control are worse than the Cedars fires of 4 years ago.
250,000 people, thus far have been evacuated from their homes extending from Ramona in the east all the way west to the coastal communities of Rancho Santa Fe, Encinitas and Del Mar. In the south, rural communities have been evacuated and precautionary (voluntary) evacuations are taking effect in the more heavily populated communities of East Lake (eastern edge of Chula Vista).
Its bad and there isn’t any relief in sight. Even during Santa Anas we don’t get too much wind but it has been blowing consistently since we got home which would give an indication of how hard its blowing further east.
So we grabbed the Substitute and made a shopping run down to our local Ghetto Mart. The parking lot at the Murph (Qualcomm Stadium) was being used as an evacuation center for those displaced from their homes and the call went out for supplies: they had plenty of food but they needed
paper plates, plastic utensils, fruit juice and of course, water.When we got down there we were told that the collection center for supplies was in Section M all the way around the other side of the stadium. We crawled along in single file traffic around the parking lot for a few minutes…. Where were all these people going?, we thought. There was plenty of space in the lot to just set up housekeeping if they were looking for a place to stay. We got um… creative and took a short cut to expedite our trip to Section M (kick-off was in 10 minutes, man!)
When we arrived there were small mountains of supplies concentrated in one area… water, blankets, sleeping bags, toilet paper…. It was amazing. And it dawned on us that the long-ass traffic line that wrapped clear around the stadium of which we were so impatient were other people, not looking for a place to stay, but rather waiting their turn to drop off supplies themselves. Yeah, we felt real good about ourselves after that.
On the drive back home, it felt like the wind had picked up and the smoke from the Harris fire (southern of the two fires and pictured above – Witch Creek fire is to the north) had gotten larger and darker. Not good. Not good at all.
Keep your fingers crossed for us and say a prayer for a change in the weather, a nice on-shore flow, a decrease in the wind and in particular for the safety of those whose homes are in danger and of the fire fighters and emergency workers who have got their hands full right now but whose commitment never waivers.
As you can see below, B-Daddy is all over this. This will be our last post for a while as we will be out to sea for a couple and then off to Vegas, which seems even a bit more frivolous and banal than it did just a few days ago.
(oh, and that's the Substitute above doing some of the heavy lifting at the Murph)
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5 comments:
Be advised: The Substitute is "lifting" his own bottle of water that he purchased from a liqour store 15 minutes earlier, and did not -- as might be inferred from the photo -- lift it from the donation stack 20 feet behind him.
Staff
That's right, we WERE at a liquor store and all we thought to bring to these people was water? Our bad.
Thanks for doing this. We're hosting relatives at our house who are evacuees, otherwise we'd have been bringing stuff down there, too.
KT, It was actually a lot of fun. National Guard personnel were doing a really good job of maintaining flow and the opportunity to display our protector/hunter-gatherer plume to the fairer sex was really too much to resist. Give 'til it hurts!
It's good to see in those photos outside Qualcomm so many people donating so much in the wake of another San Diego State football disaster!
HooooOOOO! - Cheap Seats
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